


Don't Talk About It (Please)

by Alexgalaxies



Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Angst, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/F, Love Confessions, Not Explicit!, Post-Episode: s12e10 The Timeless Children, References to Depression, References to Suicidal Tendencies, The Doctor needs a hug, Trauma, Yasmin Khan Loves the Thirteenth Doctor
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-06
Updated: 2020-05-06
Packaged: 2021-03-02 21:02:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,429
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24033217
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Alexgalaxies/pseuds/Alexgalaxies
Summary: The Doctor is back from prison and she doesn't want to talk about it. She doesn't want to talk about what occurred before the Judoon showed up either. Yaz doesn't really give her an option.ORYaz convinces the Doctor to talk about everything, just a little bit. Little did she know she'd admit everything she was feeling as well.
Relationships: Thirteenth Doctor/Yasmin Khan
Comments: 8
Kudos: 57





	Don't Talk About It (Please)

**Author's Note:**

> loosely based on Forever by The Amity Affliction
> 
> In which the Doctor doesn't mean to be so vulnerable.

The TARDIS was silent. It had been for a long time, the Doctor was gone for so long. Now that the Doctor was back, Yaz figured it would be full of noise. She was very, very wrong. The inner lighting gave away the Doctor’s emotions. It was dim, blues and dark purples, with very faint oranges from where the main light sources were.

Yaz couldn’t help but feel happy that the Doctor was okay, and that she was actually here standing in front of her currently. But the Doctor was different, and she wouldn’t talk about it or much of anything for that matter.

The Doctor would occasionally flick some switches but then something would happen. It was like all the gears in her head stopped turning, she’d stop whatever she was doing and would just freeze up. Her breath hitched and her whole body went still. Yaz found it a little frightening. The Doctor _never_ acted like this, only when she was searching for the Master. There was no way she was doing that again, something had to have happened to her while she was in prison.

When the Doctor finally returned all she said was, “I have been in prison for a few months, or maybe longer,” She had looked away questioning herself then immediately faked her excitement. “Let’s go fam!” She had exclaimed. That’s when she received even more bad news. Graham and Ryan had both decided they wouldn’t be traveling anymore. Her smile cracked for half a second. “Yes, of course,” She gave the two men great big hugs. Then the Doctor turned to Yaz. Yaz shook her head, she wasn’t ready to let go of the Doctor yet. The two women let the boys leave the TARDIS before departing. The Doctor ended up parking them in the atmosphere looking down on Earth. And the Doctor fell silent.

It was strange, she had spent so much time thinking about everything, she would’ve thought that it was finally time to stop. But here she was caught up in a specific memory. One where she even remembered what she was thinking about at the time.

  
  


_She held the detonator within her grasp. She was ready to push the button. She knew it would kill her, and the Master, and everything else on Gallifrey forever. The Doctor would be gone forever, no more variations, no chance in remembering any of the ones she couldn’t remember being. No one lives forever, she figured. The Doctor didn’t find herself afraid of this, dying was natural. She had seen so much death in her life, it was astounding how she even endured it all. That wasn’t the part that bothered her. She figured maybe it was time, after all, this wasn’t the first time she felt like she had lived long enough anyway. The Doctor could die, fine, but what if this didn’t fix the problem. What if the universe suffered anyway? What if her Fam wouldn’t be okay? What if Yaz wasn’t going to be okay? Then she began to worry if Yaz would be okay without her. She had to be, there was no alternative. Time was running out, the Master would call her bluff. She had to press the button-_

  
  


“Doctor,” Yaz said from beside one of the pillars. 

The Doctor snapped out of her daze. “Yeah?” She forced a bright smile on her face.

“You know you don’t have to pretend with me, right?” Yaz walked over to the blonde. She placed a hand over the Doctor’s that was resting on the console.

The Doctor furrowed her eyebrows. “I’m not pretending,” She ripped her hand from under Yaz’s and gripped the side of the console. She immediately affixed her gaze to a single switch. Her voice got small. “Not pretending,” She mumbled.

Yaz began more carefully. “Okay,” She lowered her shoulders to make her seem smaller and less intimidating. “Sorry, didn’t mean to upset you,” She waited for a response. The Doctor bit her tongue. Yaz realized she had struck a nerve. So she started over. “I think you should talk about it,”

The Doctor decided to play dumb. “Bout what?” The Doctor shook off any sort of understanding.

“Everything-”

The Doctor quickly cut Yaz off before she could continue her sentence. “That’s a big topic there Yaz, I could go on and on about everything. So many things, then where to start. Do I go the beginning of time? Would that bore you, the beginning of Earth perhaps? Or would you end up with a problem with your mortality? End of the Earth? No, mortality again. Besides, been there done that. I could tell you about the first species to exist, or maybe the last species to exist. I saw them, you know, a very complicated process to get there, did you know I got knocked out? Got pulled back into the TARDIS by a man who shouldn’t have been where he was. It wasn’t that long ago actually-” She said all in one breath, in an unintelligible ramble.

Yaz’s eyes were wide. “Doctor!” She stopped the Doctor mid-sentence. “Don't be daft, you know that’s not what I meant,” She said in a very serious tone. “What you’ve been through. Prison, even before that, when I last saw you,” She watched the Doctor’s expression changed. She looked like a child who had just been scolded.

The Doctor’s eyes went wide with sadness. She put it on and exaggerated it a little. She had expected Yaz to drop her stance on the situation. The Doctor’s hand shook on the edge of the console. Her mind was repeating everything she had gone through, the dreams she had, the decimation of Gallifrey. The Doctor swallowed. “I-” She began. Then she stopped, trying to pick her words carefully.

“It doesn’t have to be me, Doctor,” Yaz offered. “I just have an understanding of what the ‘justice’ system does to people and the effects on those after they get out,” She placed a comforting hand on the Doctor’s forearm. The blonde turned towards her ever so slightly.

“Yaz,” The Doctor calmed her voice down. “I just don’t want to,” She said with a stern softness.

Yaz shrugged. She pretended to drop their discussion. “Okay, we can talk about something else, if you want?” The Doctor didn’t seem to be responsive. She didn’t seem like she wanted to talk about anything. “Or I can talk,”

The Doctor nodded hesitantly, finally giving in a little. She felt afraid of what Yaz might say, which was weird because she was never usually afraid of Yaz saying things to her. It was preferred that Yaz would talk to her.

Yaz’s intake of breath was shaky and unsure. “I missed you so much,” She sighed with relief. Yaz felt a tear stinging her eyes.

The Doctor seemed to deflate. “Yaz,” She didn’t know why she hadn’t expected Yaz to say that but it didn’t make it hurt any less. She pulled away from Yaz to put some distance between them.

Tears slowly slid down brown cheeks. “I thought I’d lost you,” Her voice cracked with sadness. “I thought I’d lost-” She had never spoken these words to anyone. There was no one in all that time she would’ve been okay with sharing them with if it wasn’t the Doctor.

The Doctor couldn’t handle it. “Please stop,” She tried to cut Yaz off.

It was too late. “The person I love,” Yaz finished. This was a big admission for both of them. Yaz had known her feelings for such a long time, and she was just beginning to think she’d never get the chance to tell them to the person she wanted most. The Doctor knew deep down too, that’s what terrified her most about Yaz.

“Still?” The Doctor couldn’t help but ask. Yaz nodded ever so slightly, almost like she was afraid the Doctor didn’t feel the same. “I’m so sorry, Yaz,” The Doctor felt like she would break into a million pieces right there. “I didn’t-” Her voice cracked under the pressure of everything that had happened. “I missed you too” She bit back a sob with tears not far behind.

Yaz took a wary step forward. An arm raised gesturing away from the two of them. “You haven’t even hugged me, you stopped me from hugging you, did something happen to you?” She asked full of genuine concern. She had worked with women who had been abused. Yaz knew the signs. When around others they’d do everything in their power to hide the abuse. 

The Doctor’s lip quivered. “I just didn’t think I could bear it,” She looked down at the floor in front of Yaz. She was hiding her face. “I didn’t want to cry in front of the boys,”

“We’re not in front of the boys anymore,” Yaz said simply.

The Doctor nodded.

Yaz moved closer to the blonde. “Can I please hug you now?” She lifted her chin with a careful finger. 

Her hazel eyes finally met brown ones. She nodded softly. Yaz pulled her into a protective hug. She squeezed the Doctor lightly. The Doctor's fists gripped onto Yaz’s sweater. Yaz was real, she was not only real, but she was here. ”You’re here,” the Doctor whispered in a faint voice. She hadn’t meant to say it, it just slipped out. The Doctor buried her head in Yaz’s shoulder.

Yaz nodded. “I’m here, Doctor, and I’m not going anywhere,” She tucked her head against the Doctor’s shoulder. She heard her sniffle. Yaz rubbed slow circles over the Doctor’s back.

The Doctor held Yaz tighter. “I was so scared of what’d happen to you,” The Doctor’s tears began to fall. “I couldn’t be there to make sure nothing happened,”

Yaz pulled back from the hug with her hands at the Doctor’s sides. “I was scared of what’d happen to you, Ko Sharmus left and no one came back, it was too late, we had left,” She stroked the side of the Doctor’s arm. She squeezed it lightly as if to check that this was indeed the Doctor standing before her. Yaz had had so many dreams of the Doctor’s return, none of them even compared to having the Doctor actually standing before her.

The Doctor shook her head. Then she started talking before she could think about the ramifications of her words. “I wasn’t afraid of that, I wasn’t scared to die, I didn’t care where I ended up,” Her gaze shifted away from the brunette. “I just wanted you to be okay,” She felt her whole body trembling. “I was afraid you wouldn’t move on,” Her tears returned and streamed down her cheeks. “In prison, I kept thinking about you, all of you. Then all sorts of other things. It was like this rainstorm pouring on me, drowning my head with thoughts. All the worst things imaginable. I thought it would never stop,” Her eyes bore into Yaz soul, it was like there was something missing behind them. “It all put a big knot in my stomach,”

The Doctor’s words were alarming. I was all reminiscent of something that had happened years ago for her by now. She recognized it like it was yesterday, but this was different. This was a person who had lived longer than she could believe, there was only one thing she could say for sure. “Doctor, I’m okay,” She moved to wipe away the Doctor’s tears. “You’re here and I’m here, we’re okay, and if we’re not then we will be,” The Doctor brought a hand up to hold Yaz’s in place. “I want to be with you, no matter what,”

“I know,” A small smile made its way onto Yaz’s face. After all this time Yasmin Khan still loved her. It was something she was afraid wouldn’t be true if she ever saw Yaz again. It was something she felt guilty over, to hope Yaz might still love her after all this time or even if it had been longer. “Yaz, I want you to know something,” The insinuation in Yaz’s words were heavy. She needed Yaz to be sure. She needed to understand fully. “We won’t live forever, at least I don’t think I will,” The knowledge she had learned that shattered her sense of self dared to peek through. She pushed through it. “But I will always cherish the feelings I have for you. You’ll always be here,” She pointed to her hearts. 

Yaz placed a hand over the top of the Doctor’s over her hearts. “You’ll carry me with you,” Yaz smiled back at the Doctor. Yaz noted the Doctor’s insecurities over her own life. “If you do live forever, our love will never die,” She offered as consolation.

“It’ll never die anyway. Nothing could take away what I feel for you,” She said with the utmost sincerity. The Doctor’s expression shifted. “I have to be honest with you,” This was the time to lay everything out before Yaz. “I have to be honest with you, I’m still not afraid to die, Yaz,” Worry filled her. “I just never want to leave you alone like that again,”

Yaz shook her head. “Let's not dwell on that,” She grabbed the Doctor’s hand. “For now, let me be here for you,” Yaz pressed soft kisses to the top of the hand. “We’ll get you through this, you’ll just have to be willing,”

The Doctor nodded. “Yasmin Khan,” She didn’t finish her sentence, there was nothing else to say. The Doctor’s eyes flickered to Yaz’s lips. She looked desperate.

Yaz caught the Doctor’s gaze shift. “I'm going to kiss you now, if that’s okay,” She semi-asked.

The Doctor nodded. She had wanted to do this for so long. She leaned in and captured Yaz’s lips. Yaz kissed her back with just as much effort. They didn’t dare break away until Yaz needed to breathe and even then they pressed quick pecks on each other's mouths back and forth.

“I’ve wanted to do that for so long,” Yaz whispered against the Doctor’s mouth.

“So have I,” The Doctor agreed. She pressed their foreheads together “I think you’re the light that kept me going when everything got dark,” the Doctor said with closed eyes. “And Yaz?”

“Yeah?” Yaz looked up.

“I love you too,” She felt a kiss press against her cheek. 

Yaz just hugged the Doctor. Something she was very content with. They stayed with each other in silence. For the first time in a long time, the Doctor enjoyed it, and Yaz did too.

**Author's Note:**

> comments and kudos are appreciated! 
> 
> criticism is also welcome!


End file.
